Help with Troop Ship mission w/ 15+ Cyberdiscs

[rkagerer]

I shot down what I believe is a Sectoid Troop Ship.  The Arctic mission map greeted me with a sea of 15+ Cyberdiscs, 6 Alien Turrets of two different varieties, and of course plenty of armored Sectoids.  My agents are getting trounced.

Any tips / strategies for this mission?

I'm mid-game, armed with a few Nitro Express Rifles (on agents with ~100 ACC), two Heavy Lasers, a Laser Sniper Rifle, a Gauss Rifle, a Star Musket (on my Chief Agent w/ high ACC & PST although it still feels disappointing), a Thrasher Heavy Shotgun, a Sonic Pistol, High Explosives, a limited number of EMP grenades, and some Stun Rods.  Also brought an Outrunner/LASER and a dog.

I tried blanketing my troops with smoke, but the turrets are hitting me right through it.  Tried a "peek-and-shoot" strategy, hopping out of my ship, shooting, and retreating back inside, but they're poking holes right through the walls of my Kitsune.
I managed to survive the first turn (and take out maybe a dozen enemies), but just barely.  I need to beef up my tactics, or give up and Abort.

Any advice?

[Stone Lake]

I'd advise to ignore it. It's an optional late game encounter. It's beatable at your tech, but most likely isn't worth it.

In general, "peek-and-shoot" tactics work. Cyberdisks and sectoids aren't exactly hard enemies, but dealing with them under turrets is tough. 
Turrets don't see through smoke well, but they'll shot at you if you stay there due to sniper-spotter. They can one shot any soldier or HWP (to the point of unfixable - if their corpse disappears you won't be able to restore it) and they're tough to take down.

You need to fire at them from smoke or from cover using arc weapons. Some guy in a synthsuit chucking trit shrapnel charge at the turret can usually one shot it. Some people like to setup mortar HE shell squad - you'll need enough space and at least 2 guys to do it. You can just shoot them with decent (~100 power) weapons, but this may take a while and you need many shots per turn - their shields regenerate somewhat fast.

Cyberdisks can be one-shot with EMP, but only next to ground. Sectoids can be mind-controlled for extra recon.
From your arsenal laser snipers are probably best at this point. I don't remember which vulnerability turret shields have though.

[psavola]

Just run. You are way behind in the curve. A good player could possibly salvage the mission, but the odds are very much against you.
- Nitro Express Rifle is useless against armored units and rather inaccurate. I guess it could have some niche use against sectoids. I never even bother with it, the sniper rifles are much better in that respect (having 0,75 armor resistance and bonuses to accuracy as well as damage).
- The base damage of star musket even with 100 PST is about 50, which is not all that much, compared to what you have.
- Trasher heavy shotgun can work against lightly armored foes, but it's overkill against sectoids. I have found it to be most useful in the Zombie Reactor mission with lots of megazombies etc, because it can give good DPS. Otherwise I don't use it at all.
- I have never bothered with sonic pistols either (in underwater blasta rifles or the x-com sonic tech are a better option). There are better options for overground combat.
 
So in general I'd advise to stop carrying around old junk from 1997ish era and try to arm your squad with more modern tech. For example, you'd be much better off equipping all soldiers (all should have at least ~90 ACC) with laser sniper rifles. To deal with the turrents, you'd really be best off with a few (advanced) rocket launchers with shrapnel rockets.

[rkagerer]

Thanks for the tips.

So in general I'd advise to stop carrying around old junk from 1997ish era and try to arm your squad with more modern tech.

In fairness, it's presently May 1999.

But you're right, my high-level agents have gotten too cozy with their Nitro Express Rifles (they absolutely love 'em... 'cause it one-shot kills most of what I've encountered so far), and I'm itching for a good upgrade.  Tried out a few Laser Rifles and Laser Sniper Rifles which worked well, but short on captured ammo and can't manufacture laser weaponry yet (aside from the Hydra Laser, which I think has a bug that you can manufacture the gun - but not its ammo clips - prior to building Improved Labs).  The only lasers I have a huge stockpile of are Alien Laser Rifles (and their clips), but those haven't proved so hot.  BTW I forgot to mention, my troops are wearing Personal Armor.

Turrets don't see through smoke well, but they'll shot at you if you stay there due to sniper-spotter.

Does stacking multiple smoke grenades in the same place create more effective cover?

By "if you stay there", do you mean I need to shoot and then run to a new location on the same turn?  Do aliens automatically see anyone that shoots at them?

I've dealt with a handful of few turrets before, they've been challenging, but these ones are nastier since there's no natural cover on the map.

Thanks for the tip about the Star Musket.  I've been testing out some of the exotic weaponry to see if I like any of it; wasn't quite sure how the RANK bonus works.

[psavola]

The base damage of nitro express rifle with 100 ACC is 33+40=73, but armor effectiveness is 1.5. Take for example BO sniper rifle, which with 100 ACC would be 30+25=55, yet armor effectiveness is 0.75. So against 20 armor, nitro and BO sniper are essentially equivalent. But if the enemy has 30, 40 or 50 armor, nitro becomes essentially useless while the sniper rifles still punch through.

It's fine if you haven't been able to scavenge more laser rifles / laser sniper riles. Typically you could have improved lab (and thus access to laser manufacturing) up by 1999, but it's no big deal if you don't. You could just stick to promo II era sniper rifles until you do.

Turrents are 'sniper' units. It means that if any alien unit that is a 'spotter' (almost all of them are) sees your unit or you hit one directly during previous 1 or 2 turns (depending on the unit), ALL the sniper units will be able to fire at the spotted unit even though it doesn't see the unit. Smoke only helps for direct line of sight, but that is not the main thing to worry about here. There are various tactics to avoid this and you can read about them in this forum. The best would be running back to the craft or behind some cover. But if you are not aware of this, you're very likely screwed given how underdeveloped you are to deal with alien laser turrets. You really want to have shrapnel rockets or charges.

[rkagerer]

Turrents are 'sniper' units. It means that if you directly hit any alien unit that is a 'spotter' (almost all of them are) during previous 1 or 2 turns (depending on the unit), the laser turret can fire at the unit even though it doesn't see the unit. Smoke only helps for direct line of sight, but that is not the main thing to worry about here.

Thanks, this is super helpful to know!

[rkagerer]

Well, I managed to beat it.  It was a very careful slog (and a healthy dose of luck).

[rkagerer]

Time to rush those laser weapons!  I'd like to clear out some stuff I've been hoarding; is any of the following worth keeping around at this point?

• Throwing Stars / Throwing Knives
• Taser Cannon
• Acid Pistol
• Chempistol / Chemogun / Toxigun / Chemthrower / Canister Gun
• Plasma Caster
• Alien Laser SMG
• Plasma Subrifle
• Light / Heavy / Auto Canon
• Small Launcher (for the EMP Minibombs?)
• Sonic Blasta Rifle
• Shogg Stingrifle
• Dagon's Staff / Staff of Heart Grip
• Found/captured melee weapons like Bone Club, Chitin Knife, Dragon Dagger, EXALT Master's Cane, Deep One Hatchet / Spear, Shogg Blade / Cudgel / Hammer / Staff, Plasma Sword / Blade, Greatsword, Ancient Katana, Tritanium Sword, Photonic Spear, Vibro Blade (I can understand why Kukri was recently nerfed, it's been quite handy...)
• Any particular BlackOps gear like the SMG, Auto-Sniper Rifle, Assault Rifle, Smart Rifle, Shotgun, Auto-Shutgun, CAWS, Light Minigun, Minigun, LMG
• UAC SMG / Rifle / Shotgun / Chaingun / Heavy Nailgun (will I find better stuff before doing Space missions?)

If I can pepper you with a few more questions...  (to save me spending hours pouring over comparative UFOPaedia stats):

• Which of these is best (for an agent strong enough to carry): RPG Launcher, UAC Rocket Launcher, Multi-Launcher, Mikor MGL, Grenade Launcher
• I've been favoring Quillbow lately for underwater missions.  Is it worth keeping the Crossbow / Heavy Crossbow, Harpoon Launcher (for explosive damage)?
• (I removed a question here about hunting / sport rifles; put this placeholder back in so Stone Lake's answers line up)
• What's the difference between Incendiary vs. Napalm?  Does Napalm do less damage up-front but more over time or something?
• What's a good upgrade to shoot for from Stingray (incl. heavy) and Avalanche?  Skip Pike and go straight for Gauss or something?
• Is it weird I prefer the Nitro Express Rifle to any of the advanced BlackOps gear?

Hope you don't mind all the questions.  The weapon progression in old X-COM was straightforward, obviously there's a lot more content in X-Com Files and I'm still working on getting a sense of what can be ignored / left behind.  Thanks!

[Stone Lake]

That's a lot of questions. Are you sure you want the answers instead of finding out yourself? That's one of fun things about XCF.

Does stacking multiple smoke grenades in the same place create more effective cover?

I dunno, but smoke dissipates and weakens over time. And you can "refresh" it.

For weapons, I dunno what your progress is, even if it's 1999. Here's some notes on usability.

Spoiler Weapons:

The go-to weapon is laser snipers.
Throwing knives/stars are more of a "fun" weapon. Throwing ax, on the other hand, is unironically decent weapon, it can one-shot stuff you'll be struggling to shoot to (e.g. mib grunts, hybrid small and big drones, syndicate walkers). And 1999 is usually all about pestering mibs, so... keep an eye for some axed cavemen to get it.
There's fire extinguisher rounds for chempistol that make it handy little extinguisher for saving your burning soldiers. Very relevant when fighting against plasma in personal / cyber armor.
Plasma weapons/small launcher: sell, it's still a long way to researching and using them. And even then most of them are not very useful.
Staff of heart grip: it's lethal version of psi amp, decent psionics can kill from beyond the walls. Handy in underwater or in dreamscape.
Sonic pistol is decent on land, sonic rifle or cannon for underwater (need more punch for actual sea-dwellers).

Melee: Photonic spear is good on dedicated melee. Photonic blade is the holy grail if you can find it.
Otherwise it's kukri / wakizashi or mostly just plain punching / electric clubs.
Remember, you need to capture ~10 alien leaders / 20+ engineers to get to the "good" tech.
Punches to alien skulls make wonders there and pick up where EMP fails.
Blops: Macro SMG / Smartgun / Sniper rifles. Pistols to train rookies.
UAC: I somewhat like chaingun. For space you use lasers / plasma.
The rest: sell.

Spoiler More questions:

1. None. Tactical Grenade Launcher / Rocket Launcher -> Advanced rocket launcher / Mortars.
TGL is best anti-human weapon, decent sectoid capturing tool. The rest are situation-specific.
2. Not really.
3. Scoped. Should use none of these past promo 2, though.
4. Not all weapons scale from weapon's power, e.g. smoke has fixed 0 damage. Incendiary usually has fixed 5-10 damage, Napalm actually scales from power (50-150%).
For grenades, the difference is marginal - incendiary grenade has slightly more powerful aoe (damage doesn't drop off from center), napalm grenade is more powerful at ground zero blast, but drops off to the sides.
5. Yes, the aircraft rockets are basically garbage. Stingrays are at least buyable, so it's "best". Upgrade to mass driver cannons, then/or to gauss, but... they're not too good on slow and fragile ravens.
Once you build improved lab, you'll get some intermediate ship, same way as kitsune. That. That's the upgrade.

[Solarius Scorch]

(aside from the Hydra Laser, which I think has a bug that you can manufacture the gun - but not its ammo clips - prior to building Improved Labs).

Not at all; many weapons can be manufactured before their respective clips. It's easier.

[Rag]

Time to rush those laser weapons!  I'd like to clear out some stuff I've been hoarding; is any of the following worth keeping around at this point?

• Taser Cannon
• Toxigun
• Heavy / Auto Canon
• Small Launcher (for the EMP Minibombs?)
• Sonic Blasta Rifle
• Dagon's Staff / Staff of Heart Grip
• Ancient Katana, Tritanium Sword
• BlackOps Auto-Sniper Rifle
• UAC Heavy Nailgun (will I find better stuff before doing Space missions?)

Taser Cannon is very useful for underwater missions until you get proper Sonic weapons, it can reliably 1-2 shot most enemies and if its a small mission they tend to stay down for it but you might need to keep an eye on them for the longer missions. They are also good for capturing Hybrid drones especially the Large ones as 2x2 enemies can't wake up so they are out for the mission

Toxigun depends on how soon you pick up Alien Gardens to make the ammo, they look comparable to Sonic Shotguns

Heavy Cannon and Auto-Cannon's buckshot looks appealing for zombies if older shotguns aren't doing the job anymore if you need to fight them close, but its expensive and bulky so probably not worth it for that single use case

Small Launcher I'd recommend keeping at least until you research it, sadly you need a stun bomb to actually manufacture it and you are likely to get another small launcher when you loot a stun bomb, but you might find time to research the first part in advance

Dagons Staff doesn't have a sanity drain so could make for a good training weapon without excess sanity loss

I use the Ancient Katana for Dreams, Tritanium Blades are amazing they might even be superior to Plasma blades due to Cutting damage being resisted less than Plasma

BlackOps Auto-Sniper rifle has very cheap ammunition for its damage, if you are using laser weapons that require ammo they would be best to use on less difficult missions to conserve the more valuable laser ammo. Once you get to Turbolasers you can replace them for good

The UAC Heavy Nailgun might have a niche use due to its cutting type damage, but otherwise UAC weapons don't seem worth keeping, I doubt you would reach space missions before getting turbolasers unless incredibly unlucky on the bonus topic, (I just cycled it until I got it)

[rkagerer]

Thanks Stone Lake and Rag, those are awesome answers I appreciate it!  Especially the care taken to use spoiler tags.

Yeah, BlackOps Auto-Sniper seems the most sensible evolution from my Nitro's (for missions where I want to expend buyable ammo instead of manufactured).